The International Labour Organization (ILO) in Past and ...€¦ · The International Labour Organization (ILO) in Past and Present Research J ASMIENVAN D AELE* SUMMARY: This article

IRSH 53 (2008), pp. 485–511 doi:10.1017/S0020859008003568r 2008 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

SURVEY

The International Labour Organization (ILO)in Past and Present Research

J A S M I E N V A N D A E L E *

SUMMARY: This article addresses from a multidisciplinary perspective key questions,trends, and debates that have determined how the history of the International LabourOrganization (ILO) has been conceived over the past ninety years. ILO historio-graphy has to be understood in relation to the historical development of the ILO asan institution; the international political, economic, and social context; and thedevelopments within the scientific discipline, especially the fields of (a globalizing)labour history and international relations/organizations. A starting point for thissurvey essay is the central hypothesis that the scientific interest in the history ofinternational organizations is very much related to the general importance attached tomultilateral structures and the belief in the effectiveness of international cooperation.Based on this analysis of the past trends and the current state of the field, I concludewith comments on lacunae and possible paths for future research on ILO history.

Studying the history of the International Labour Organization (ILO) isdesirable for several reasons. Firstly, the ILO has been a trendsetteramong international organizations in standard-setting (creating labourstandards by means of conventions and recommendations) as well as intechnical cooperation and international expertise on labour matters. Bymeans of its operational activities in the field as part of this three-prongedaction the ILO has tried to improve the daily working life of peopleworldwide. Secondly, the organization was (and still is) unique in itstripartite structure. Whereas all other international organizations (like theUnited Nations) consist exclusively of representatives of national states, theILO brings together governments, employers and trade unions at all levels

* Research Officer ‘‘ILO Century Project’’, International Institute for Labour Studies-ILO,Geneva. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author and do not necessarilyreflect any position of the ILO. I am grateful to Marcel van der Linden, Gerry Rodgers, andDirk Luyten for their careful reading and useful suggestions.

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of decision-making. This combined structure of governmental and non-governmental constituents has proved to be very stable as it has remainedunchanged up to the present day. Thirdly, the ILO is the oldest internationalorganization of the twentieth century. Founded in 1919, the ILO will beninety years old in 2009. The organization was established as the firstspecialized agency within the League of Nations. But unlike the League, theILO survived World War II and became part of the succeeding UnitedNations (UN) system.1 Since it is one of the very few international organ-izations with a lengthy and unbroken history, the ILO is an interestingresearch topic for historians.

So far, comprehensive academic reviews of the literature on ILOhistory have not yet been undertaken. This essay will try to fill this void.2

I will review the literature in order to trace the general evolution andthe particular contours of ILO historiography. Since the early days aconsiderable body of literature has accumulated in many languages andI do not claim exhaustiveness here. This survey article is based on whatI consider to be the most relevant and representative literature that hasaddressed key questions and reflects trends, debates, and developmentsthat determine how the ILO has been conceived over the past ninetyyears and that help explain the current state of ILO history.

The conjunctures and (shifts in) analytical foci in ILO historiographyhave to be understood in relation to three broader aspects: the historicaldevelopment of the ILO as an institution; the international political,economic, and social context; and developments within the scientificdiscipline, especially the fields of labour history and international relations/organizations. A starting point for this survey essay is the central hypothesis,as stated by Louis Sohn, that scientific interest in the history of internationalorganizations is very much related to the general importance attached tomultilateral structures and belief in the effectiveness of internationalcooperation.3 In the case of the ILO, however, this hypothesis has provednot to be completely true, as I will show. And in the light of the recent

1. For a brief introduction to the ILO in the international organizations system, see J. McMahon,‘‘The International Labour Organization’’, in E. Luard (ed.), The Evolution of InternationalOrganizations (London, 1966), pp. 177–199; idem, ‘‘International Labour Organization (ILO)’’,in G. Schiavone, International Organizations: A Dictionary and Directory (Basingstoke, 2005),pp. 193–196; E. Prugl, ‘‘International Labor Organization (ILO)’’, in M. Griffiths (ed.), Encyclopediaof International Relations and Global Politics (New York [etc.], 2005), pp. 422–425.2. An earlier version of this article was presented at the conference ‘‘The International LabourOrganization: Past and Present’’, Brussels, 5–6 October 2007, a joint initiative of the Inter-national Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), the Institute of Social History (AMSAB–ISG,Ghent), Ghent University, and the Free University Brussels.3. L. Sohn, ‘‘The Growth of the Science of International Organizations’’, in K. Deutsch andS. Hoffmann (eds), The Relevance of International Law: Essays in Honor of Leo Gross(New York, 1971), p. 334.

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globalizing trends in labour history, it is also inevitable to ask the questionhow ‘‘global’’ past and present research on the ILO has been. After all,the ILO is an international organization aimed at promoting labour rightsworldwide and fighting poverty and social inequality, especially in thedeveloping world. Consequently there is a highly interesting researchpotential for authors interested in labour topics related to the non-Western world, i.e. Latin America, Africa, and Asia. This essay will showthat ILO literature, however, is not as global as it could and should be.

T H E S P E C I F I C I T Y O F I L O H I S T O R I O G R A P H Y

Looking at the wide range of available studies on ILO history, thereare two essential characteristics. First of all, ILO history is definitely nota field that has been exclusively occupied by historians. Internationaland industrial relations specialists, sociologists, lawyers, and laboureconomists have also been interested, from different perspectives andposing different research questions, in ILO history. The scope of thisreview article will therefore be multidisciplinary. I have included allstudies that pay attention to the external-environmental and internal-organizational dimensions of the ILO and are therefore relevant for abetter understanding of the organization’s history.

Secondly, the ILO has been the object of research from two angles.What I call ‘‘inside studies’’ are produced by the International LabourOffice, the Secretariat of the International Labour Organization inGeneva, and/or by (former) ILO officials. The organization itself hasproduced considerable literature about its origins, evolution, functioning,and performance, often for commemorative purposes. Sengenberger andCampbell refer to ‘‘the good tradition of the ILO to use importantanniversary years for review, reflection and assessment, for lookingbackwards and forwards’’.4 In their view, 1944 represents the ILO’s SilverJubilee, 1969 its Golden Anniversary (when the organization was alsoawarded the Nobel Peace Prize) and 1994, after seventy-five years, itsDiamond Age. In many cases this ‘‘self-promotion’’ has been undertakenby officials, who have been personally involved in one way or another in thework of the ILO. The authors write about the ILO on the basis of theirILO engagement. This does not mean that the works discussed may not becritical, coherent, or scientifically composed, but most of these studies werespecially written to expound and justify the ILO’s work and self-image.

‘‘Outside studies’’ have been produced by academics who have anindependent scientific position. The publications are not shaped by apersonal link to the organization, but by scientific interest, based on

4. W. Sengenberger and D. Campbell (eds), International Labour Standards and EconomicInterdependence (Geneva, 1994), p. v.

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theoretical questions and frames of reference, and an historical approachthat goes beyond the institution and its own sources. This group ofauthors approach the institution from a more critical perspective. In a fewcases, these groups cannot be strictly differentiated. A former official,Robert Cox, for instance, left the organization after a career of twenty-five years and became an eminent Professor of International Relationswith a highly critical perspective on the ILO. In what follows, I will takethe ‘‘inside’’ as well as the ‘‘outside’’ studies into account since both areessential and substantial to drawing general conclusions on the state ofthe field.

A reading of the literature reveals roughly five periods of ILO histor-iography with different characteristics and analytical foci. Based on thisanalysis of the past trends and the current state of the field, I will concludethis survey article with comments on lacunae and possible paths for futureresearch.

T H E F I R S T D E C A D E : ‘‘ T H E C A P R I C I O U S A N D

FA N TA S T I C P L AY O F C O N S T I T U T I O N A L T E X T S A N D

S O C I A L R E A L I T I E S ’’ 5

Studies about the ILO and its history are well available from the verybeginning. ILO historiography has its origins in the ‘‘insider literature’’ ofthe 1920s. The ‘‘first-generation’’ producers of ILO histories were notprofessional historians, but often ILO leaders, labour law experts (e.g.Ernest Mahaim6), or representatives of governments (George Barnes,7

5. A. Thomas, ‘‘The International Labour Organization: Its Origins, Development andFuture’’, International Labour Review [hereafter ILR], 1 (1921); this article was reprinted inILR, 135 (1996), pp. 261–276, 263.6. Ernest Mahaim (1865–1938), a Law professor of the University of Liege, one of the foundingfathers of the International Association of Labour Legislation in 1900 and the ILO in 1919, andthe representative of the Belgian government in the ILO Governing Body and the InternationalLabour Conferences in Geneva. See also J. Van Daele, ‘‘Engineering Social Peace: Networks,Ideas, and the Founding of the International Labour Organization’’, International Review ofSocial History [hereafter IRSH], 50 (2005), pp. 435–466. E.g. E. Mahaim, ‘‘Some Legal Ques-tions Relating to International Labour Conventions ‘‘, ILR, 20 (1929), pp. 765–796; idem, ‘‘Lesprincipes de la legislation internationale du travail’’, Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et desSciences Morales et Politiques, 13 (1927), pp. 204–233; idem, L’Organisation du travail de laSociete des Nations et la Conference de Washington (Brussels, 1920); idem, ‘‘InternationalLabour Law’’, ILR, 1 (1921), pp. 283–286 (repr. in ‘‘75 Years of the International LabourReview: A Retrospective’’, ILR, 135 (1996)); idem, ‘‘Histoire de la convention de Washingtonsur la duree de travail’’, Revue Economique Internationale, 4 (1928), pp. 513–545.7. George Nicoll Barnes (1859–1940), former trade-union Secretary, member of the LabourParty, and leader of the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; G.N. Barnes,History of the International Labour Office (London, 1926). See also his autobiography: idem,From Workshop to War Cabinet (London, 1923).




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Max Lazard8) and trade unions (Leon Jouhaux,9 Jan Oudegeest10),who were personally involved in the founding and/or decision-makingstructures of the organization.11 In the first decades it was also theInternational Labour Office itself that analysed and published the historyof the organization,12 for instance in 1929, on the occasion of the tenthanniversary.13 From the beginning, academics too were interested in theILO, especially legal scholars and political scientists. They studied theorganization as a new phenomenon within the broader framework ofinternational relations and the development of public international law.14

A remarkable detail is that a considerable proportion of the academicliterature was prefaced by (or addressed to) the first director of the ILO,Albert Thomas.

8. Max Lazard (1875–1953), a French sociologist, unemployment expert, and delegate ofthe French government at the Peace Conference of Versailles; M. Lazard, L’Organisationpermanente du travail (Paris, 1922).9. Leon Jouhaux (1879–1954), leader of the French Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT),member of the Commission on International Labour Legislation in 1919 and workers’representative in the ILO Governing Body and International Labour Conferences;L. Jouhaux, L’Organisation internationale du Travail (Paris, 1921).10. J. Oudegeest, ‘‘The International Trade Union Movement and the Labour Office’’, ILR, 1(1921), pp. 41–44. In this article the Dutch trade-union leader and representative to theInternational Labour Conferences Jan Oudegeest (1870–1950) reviewed the role of the inter-national trade union movement in, and independent of, the ILO.11. E.g. E.J. Solano (ed.), Labour as an International Problem (London, 1920) is a collection ofessays by ILO founding fathers, George Barnes, Emile Vandervelde, Harold Butler, SophySanger, Arthur Fontaine, Minoru Oka, James Shotwell, etc.12. L’Organisation internationale du Travail et la premiere annee de son activite (Geneva,1921); The International Labour Office as a World Centre of Information (Geneva, 1927).13. The First Decade of the International Labour Organization (Geneva, 1930); The Inter-national Labour Organization 1919–1929 (Geneva, 1930); J. Delbecq, Dix ans du BIT a vold’oiseau (Annemasse, 1930).14. J. Godart, Les clauses du travail dans le Traite de Versailles (Paris, 1920); M. Guerreau,L’Organisation internationale du Travail. Une nouvelle institution du droit des gens (Paris,1923); P. Devinat, L’Organisation internationale du Travail (Paris, 1923); J. Chateau, De lacompetence de l’Organisation internationale du Travail en matiere de travail agricole (Paris,1924); R. Tremelloni, L’Organizzazione internationale de lavoro (Milan, 1924); A. Vabre, Ledroit international du travail (Paris, 1925); A. Chisholm, Labour’s Magna Charta: A CriticalStudy of the Labour Clauses of the Peace Treaty and of the Draft Conventions and Recom-mendations of the Washington International Labour Conference (London, 1925); M. Drechsel,Le traite de Versailles et le mechanisme, des conventions internationales du travail (Brussels,1926); P. Perigord, The ILO: A Study of Labor and Capital in Cooperation (New York, 1926);H. Van Zanten, L’influence de la Partie XIII du traite de Versailles sur le developpement dudroit international public et sur le droit interne des etats (Leiden, 1927); L. Wolscht, Dieinternationale Regelung des Arbeitsrechts auf Grund des Versailler Friedensvertrages unterbesonderer Berucksichtigung der seitherigen Entwicklung (Wolfenbuttel, 1927); E. Hiltonen, Lacompetence de l’Organisation internationale du Travail. I. Competence de fond (Paris, 1929);G. Scelle, L’Organisation internationale du Travail et le BIT (Paris, 1930); C. Argentier,Resultats acquis par l’Organisation permanente du travail de 1919 a 1929 (Paris, 1930).




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During the first years this ‘‘outsider’’ literature remains close to theinsiders’ perspective: a very descriptive history with a formal institu-tional focus on the general aspects of the organization. The frame ofreference is the constitutional mandate and the actual operation of theorganization with its methods and means to approach international labourlegislation, often in close relation to the role of the member-states.15

Consequently, these early writings on ILO history are rather old-fashioned from a methodological point of view. They contain inmany cases a table of ratifications of conventions and the full text ofPart XIII of the Paris Peace Treaty, the constitutional text of the ILO,in an appendix. A significant fact is that these first publicationslargely pay attention to the ideological and institutional roots of theorganization during the nineteenth century as a way of emphasizing its‘‘long’’ history.16

It is not coincidental that the tone of all those publications is veryoptimistic. Authors in the first phase shared a strong belief in the successof the ILO as part of a new multilateral system hosted in Geneva, a city offlourishing international intellectual and operational activities. They triedto explain how a peaceful world could be created and what contributionthe ILO could (or should) make towards that. G.A. Johnston, an ILOofficial, had already written in 1924 that:

[y] the passage of time has brought a gradually deepening conviction that thisOrganization, founded in a spirit of generous enthusiasm, is destined, amid allthe sombre difficulties of the post-war world, to fulfil a function of graduallyincreasing importance in the maintenance of that international peace which isbased on social justice.17

After all, the ILO was a new institution that had to prove itself and thepurpose of this first phase in ILO historiography was mainly to explainwhat the institution was doing and how it came into being.

15. See e.g. H. Fehlinger, ‘‘Deutschland und die Internationale Arbeitsorganization’’, Zeitschriftfur Volkerrecht, 14 (1927), pp. 23–29; H. Crommelin Van Wickevoort, Wereldwetgevers.De Internationale Arbeidsorganisatie aan het werk (The Hague, 1931); J. PuchadesMonton, Organizacion internacional del trabajo de la sociedad de las naciones (Valencia,1931).16. E.g. A. de Maday, Charte internationale du travail (Paris, 1921); F. Podmore, Robert Owen:A Biography (London, 1923); A. Thomas, ‘‘Quelques notes sur Robert Owen et la legislationinternationale du travail’’, in Melanges offerts a Charles Andler (Strasbourg, 1924), pp. 323–333;R. Weiss, Un precurseur de la legislation internationale du travail, Daniel Legrand (1783–1859),son oeuvre sociale et internationale (Paris, 1926); A. Millerand, ‘‘Origines francaises du BIT’’,Revue des Deux Mondes, 102 (1932), pp. 589–601; A. de Maday, ‘‘Necker, precurseur dupacifisme et de la protection ouvriere’’, Revue de l’Institut de Sociologie Solvay, 15 (1935),pp. 39–52.17. G.A. Johnston, International Social Progress: The Work of the International LabourOrganization of the League of Nations (London, 1924), p. 5.




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Not surprisingly the literature remained still very Europe-centred, asthe ILO was itself. Although several important Asian and Latin Americancountries had already joined the organization in the early years (such asIndia, China, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile), the ILO still remainedlargely dominated by ‘‘a club of like-minded states’’,18 mostly the majorindustrialized countries within Europe that – despite early protests fromnon-European members – occupied the crucial positions in decision-making (e.g. in the ILO Governing Body). This Eurocentrism is clearlyreflected in the bulk of the early writings. The Latin American countriesthat were represented in the ILO from the beginning, such as Argentinaand Chile, produced some interesting studies with a specific focus onregional problems (for instance, international migration policies).19

However, the most significant exception to the early Eurocentrism isIndia. It is significant that studies on the relations between the ILOand India were published early on.20 India, a dominion of the UnitedKingdom, joined the ILO as one of the very first non-European membersand participated actively in the organization. But overall, non-Europeanstudies were rare.21

All these early works are characterized by a very legitimizing conceptof the institutional roots, the structure, the tasks, the raison d’etre, and themission of the organization, as well as the position and the identity of theILO in the broader international system, in particular in its relationshipwith the League of Nations. Therefore, historical writing in the 1920s canbe defined as an instrument of self-justification. An important pioneer inthis ‘‘scholarship of legitimation’’ was the first Director of the ILO, theFrench socialist, Albert Thomas (1878–1932). As a historian himself,Thomas realized that historical knowledge was an important tool for abetter understanding of the present, and an essential foundation for the

18. K.N. Dahl, ‘‘The Role of ILO Standards Policy in the Global Integration Process’’, Journalof Peace Research, 5 (1968), p. 321.19. E.g. C. Saavedra Lamas, Tratados internacionales de tipo social (Buenos Aires, 1922); LaRepublica Argentina en la Organizacion Internacional del Trabajo (Buenos Aires, 1925);T. Romero Hodges, La Organizacion Internacional del Trabajo y la Legislacion Social de Chile(Santiago, 1930); F. Walker Linares, La sociedad de las Naciones y sus Organismos del Trabajo(Santiago, 1930).20. India and the International Labour Organization (Geneva, 1924); P.P. Pillai, India and theInternational Labour Organization (Patna, 1931); L. Sundaram, India and the ILO (London,1931) (repr. from Asiatic Review, 27 October 1931); L.N. Birla and P.P. Pillai, India and theILO (Bombay, 1946).21. Other examples: F. Wilson, ‘‘The Pacific and the International Labor Organization’’, PacificAffairs, 5:6 (1932), pp. 497–511 (on the ILO’s contribution to specific problems in the Pacificarea, such as native labour and migration); Much more descriptive (rather a detailed descriptionof the participation of the Pacific delegations in the Conference of 1930 than an historicalanalysis) is E. Green, ‘‘The Pacific and the International Labour Conference’’, Pacific Affairs,3 (1930), pp. 845–853.




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ILO’s future effectiveness. In one of his earliest articles as Director of theILO, in the International Labour Review (the flagship journal of the ILOon all aspects of the world of work) in 1921, Thomas stated that it was acrucial task for the ILO ‘‘to make known the need for and utility of theOrganization, to arouse in all countries and in all circles the sympathy andfaith which it requires. Where are we? What future is open to the ILO?How far will its work be effective?’’.22 That is why ILO historiographywas, in the first years, so important for ILO protagonists.

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‘‘ T O WA R D S B E T T E R T H I N G S ’’ 23

In this period, ILO historiography followed more or less the pattern of theprevious decade, but against a different international background. Duringthe turbulent time of the 1930s serious criticisms of the international systemwere heard. The worldwide economic crisis, mass unemployzment, and therise of dictatorship in Europe and Latin America could not be remediedor halted by the League of Nations and the ILO. In a context of economicand political nationalism European member-states also ratified sig-nificantly less ILO conventions. The ILO and individual ILO officialsresponded by some ecritures de defense, explaining what the organizationwas meant for and why and how it should continue working.24 A com-bination of legitimacy and defence can also be found in the first books onthe ILO Director Albert Thomas. His unexpected death in 1932, when hewas still actively in charge, gave rise to the first influx of biographicalliterature on his life and ideas, produced by the ILO25 as well as byoutsiders.26

While legal and political science scholars continued writing on generalaspects of the organization,27 there was growing attention in the literature

22. Thomas, ‘‘International Labour Organization’’, p. 5.23. N. Hewett, Towards Better Things: The Story of the International Labour Organization(London, 1936).24. E.g. H. Butler, ‘‘The Past, Present and Future of the ILO’’, in Geneva Institute ofInternational Relations, Problems of Peace (London, 1931), pp. 29–43; La OrganizacionInternacional del Trabajo. ‘Laboratorio de Paz Social’ (Ginebra, 1934); L’Organizationinternationale du Travail. Ce qu’elle est, ce qu’elle a fait (Geneva, 1936); E. Phelan, ‘‘The ILOand the Future of the Collective System’’, in Geneva Institute of International Relations,Problems of Peace (London, 1937), pp. 127–144.25. E. Mahaim e.a., Albert Thomas, 1878–1932 (Annemasse, 1932); E.J. Phelan, Yes and AlbertThomas (London, 1936). Also translated in French as Albert Thomas et la creation du BIT(Paris, 1936).26. E. Poisson, Le cooperateur Albert Thomas. Un quart de siecle de vie militante (Paris, 1933).27. A.S. Cheyney, The International Labor Organization (Philadelphia, PA, 1933); A. Berenstein,Les organisations ouvrieres. Leurs competences et leur role dans la Societe des Nations (Brussels,1936); J. Zarras, Le controle de l’application des conventions internationales du travail




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towards the economic role of the ILO. It was no coincidence that thedebate on the efforts of the ILO to play a more active part in shapingeconomic conditions took off during the crisis of the 1930s. In the firstyears the ILO had dealt with the social effects rather than with the causesof existing economic conditions. During the Great Depression, when itfaced the challenge of excessive unemployment due to cyclical crises incapitalism, the ILO started advocating measures of monetary and creditpolicy, international trade, and public works, all with the purpose ofstimulating economic recovery.28

It was also no coincidence that just before and in the immediateaftermath of the long-expected entry of the United States into the ILO in1934 the literature on the relations between Geneva and Washington grew.In the international polemic on ILO membership different argumentswere highlighted. On the one hand, there were the American opponents,who often used the critique that the ILO was ‘‘a League of Nationsinstrument’’ as it was financially dependent on the League, which theAmericans would never join.29 For the American Federation of Labour(AFL), the ILO, with its double government representation, was nothingmore than ‘‘a state machine’’.30 Traditionally rooted in a very pragmaticand voluntarist ethos, the AFL favoured not laws but privately negotiatedcontractual agreements between unions and employers without anygovernment interference. On the other hand, the advocates of the ILOdefended the decision of President Roosevelt and his labour administra-tion to join the ILO. In the context of the New Deal social reforms it wasgenerally thought that the ILO would be a useful instrument for the US.31

(Paris, 1937); F. Wilson, Labor in the League System: A Study of the International LaborOrganization in Relation to International Administration (Stanford, CA, 1937); A.N. Molenaar,De naleving van arbeidsconventies. Rede aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden op 11 februari 1938(’s Gravenhage, 1938).28. L. Chaudouard, Le role de l’Organisation internationale du Travail dans l’activiteeconomique (Paris, 1933); L.E. Lorwin, ‘‘The ILO and World Economic Policy’’, ILR, 33(1936), pp. 457–467; C.W. Jenks, ‘‘L’Organisation internationale du Travail face au probleme del’organisation de l’economie’’, Annales de l’economie collective, 29 (1937), pp. 111–247.29. The ILO received the contributions of its member-states through the Fourth Committee ofthe League of Nations General Assembly; P.G. Steinbicker, ‘‘Is the International LaborOrganization Really Autonomous?’’, American Political Science Review, 29 (1935), pp. 866–870.30. M. Woll, ‘‘The International Labour Office: A Criticism’’, Current History, 31 (1930),pp. 683–689. Matthew Woll was vice-president of the AFL.31. S. Miller, What the International Labor Organization Means to America (foreword byJohn G. Winant) (New York, 1936); E. Phelan, ‘‘The United States and the ILO’’, PoliticalScience Quarterly, 50 (1935), pp. 107–121; E.J. Phelan, M.O. Hudson and J.T. Shotwell, ‘‘TheInternational Labour Organization: Membership of the United States and its Possibilities’’,International Conciliation, 309 (1935), pp. 105–151; B.E. Lowe, International Protection ofLabor: International Labor Organization, History and Law (New York, 1935); W.L. Tayler,Federal States and Labor Treaties: Relations of Federal States to the International Labor




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An important protagonist in the American campaign for ILOmembership was James Shotwell, a Professor of History at ColumbiaUniversity and an eminent promoter of international cooperation.32

Shotwell had attended the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 as amember of the American delegation and later chaired the AmericanCommittee on International Intellectual Cooperation of the League ofNations. In 1934 he published his two major volumes on the origins of theILO with the explicit motive of pushing the US government to join theorganization.33 Rather than an in-depth historical analysis, Shotwell’svolumes provide valuable source materials as they bring together animportant collection of chapters written by ILO people involved in thefounding process, accompanied by a rich and detailed collection ofarchives documents and texts (e.g. the original minutes of the Commis-sion on International Labour Legislation that prepared the foundation ofthe ILO in 1919) that are useful for historians interested in the origins andearly years of the ILO. One consequence of this upsurge in the literatureon the new American membership was that from the 1930s onwards ILOhistoriography became gradually less Europe-centred.

World War II was a period of deep transition for the ILO.34 Like theLeague of Nations, its existence was put into question, but the ILOmanaged to survive the war and find a place within the new multilateralsystem as a specialized agency of the United Nations. This period ofreorientation of its role and position, programmatic rethinking, and

Organization (with a foreword by Samuel McCune Lindsay) (New York, 1935); M. Hudson,‘‘The Membership of the United States in the ILO’’, American Journal of International Law, 28(1934), pp. 669–684; ‘‘The International Labor Organization’’, special issue Annals of theAmerican Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 166 (1933); U. Hubbard, ‘‘The Cooperationof the United States with the League of Nations and the ILO’’, International Conciliation, 274(1931), pp. 675–825.32. On Shotwell, see H. Josephson, James T. Shotwell and the Rise of Internationalism inAmerica (Rutherford, NJ [etc.], 1975); C. Debenedetti, ‘‘James T. Shotwell and the Science ofInternational Politics’’, Political Science Quarterly, 89 (1974), pp. 379–395; idem, ‘‘Peace was hisProfession’’, in F. Merli (ed.), Makers of American Diplomacy: From Benjamin Franklin toHenry Kissinger (New York, 1974), pp. 385–406.33. ‘‘Justified by its history, freed from entanglements with the Peace Treaties, safeguarded byits Constitution from any tendencies to interfere with domestic legislation, the ILO offerscountries like the United States an instrument which can be used greatly to its advantage andwhich in no conceivable way can be used against it. [y] It would be a happy although notcalculated consequence of this documentary history if it should lessen the blindness of prejudicewhich has hitherto deprived the US of an avenue of helpful international cooperation in thefield that bears the marks of the worst ravages of the industrial depression, that which has to dowith the conditions of daily life of the common man’’; J.T. Shotwell, The Origins of theInternational Labour Organization (New York, 1934), 2 vols, pp. xxix–xxx.34. On the eve of World War II the ILO had made concrete plans to publish an overviewvolume, looking back at its first twenty years. Due to the outbreak of the war, the volumeremained unpublished. (With thanks to Remo Becci, ILO archivist, for this information.)




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adaptation to the postwar international system led to a revival in theliterature, focusing explicitly on the ILO’s intention to preserve itsindependence and uniqueness. Looking back on the past decades, takingstock of the challenges by positioning itself at the side of the United Statesand Great Britain, the leading powers of that time, and looking forward toits future under the new umbrella of the UN is the main characteristic ofall these publications. The analyses of both ‘‘insiders’’35 and ‘‘outsiders’’36

were still mainly institutional, focusing on the general, legal, and politicalconsequences of the international problems of war and peace.

T H E F I R S T D E C A D E S O F T H E C O L D WA R ( L AT E

1 9 4 0 S – M I D 1 9 7 0 S ) : P R O F E S S I O N A L I Z AT I O N

A N D D I V E R S I F I C AT I O N

From an academic point of view, ILO historiography becomes moreinteresting and diversified from the 1950s onwards. This is remarkable.While the Cold War polarized and more or less paralysed internationalrelations, and international organizations lost a large part of their inde-pendence, one would expect that this would lead to diminishing researchinterest of scholars in international organizations. But this is certainly notthe case for the ILO.

35. C.W. Jenks, ‘‘The Contribution of the ILO to the Development of Procedures of PeacefulChange’’, World Affairs, 4 (1939), pp. 361–379; J. Winant, ‘‘Twenty Years of the ILO(1919–1939)’’, Annals of Collective Economy, (1939), pp. 611–625; J. Godart, The Future of theILO (Montreal, 1943); C. Goodrich, ‘‘The International Labor Organization’’, in Pioneers inWorld Order (New York, 1944), pp. 87–106; C. Riegelman, ‘‘Labor’s Bridgehead: the ILO’’,Political Science Quarterly, 60 (1945), pp. 205–221; C.W. Jenks, ‘‘Revision of the Constitution ofthe International Labour Organization’’, BYIL, 23 (1946), pp. 303–317; E.J. Phelan, The ILOand the United Nations/L’OIT et les Nations Unies (Montreal, 1946); idem, ‘‘The Contributionof the ILO to Peace’’, ILR, 59 (1949), pp. 607–632.36. S. Trocme, L’Organisation internationale du Travail et la guerre (Aix-en-Provence, 1942);K. Pribram, ‘‘The ILO: Present Functions and Future Tasks’’, Foreign Affairs, 21 (1942),pp. 158–167; C. Dechamp, ‘‘L’avenir de l’Organisation Internationale du Travail et ses possi-bilites d’evolution’’, Revue syndicale suisse, 34 (1942), pp. 345–362; M. Starr, ‘‘Labor Issues atSan Francisco’’, Current History, 8 (1945), pp. 517–521; J. Price, ‘‘The International LabourOrganization’’, International Affairs, 21 (1945), pp. 30–39; G. Brand, ‘‘International LaborOrganization in Transition’’, World Affairs, 12 (1946), pp. 81–89; G. Fischer, Les rapports entrel’Organisation internationale du Travail et la Cour Permanente de Justice Internationale.Contribution a l’etude du probleme de la separation des pouvoirs dans le domaine international(Berne, 1946); E.S. Hediger, ‘‘The International Labor Organization and the United Nations’’,Foreign Policy Reports (New York), 22:6 (1946), pp. 71–79; R.J.P. Mortished, World Parliamentof Labour: A Study of the ILO, its Past Achievements and Potentialities for the Future, andProposals for its Reorganization (London, 1946); J. Fried, ‘‘Relations between the UN andthe ILO’’, American Political Science Review, 41 (1947), pp. 963–977; J. Sulkowski, ‘‘TheCompetence of the International Labor Organization under the United Nations System’’,American Journal of International Law, 45 (1951), pp. 286–313.




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On the one hand the stream of ‘‘self-promotion’’ continued, that is tosay, the ILO’s literature of ‘‘self-identity’’ in the context of the organi-zation’s tradition of contributing to its own image, albeit in the newcontext of postwar international relations. Former ILO officials publishedmemoirs and autobiographies in which they shed light on personalexperiences and turning points, such as the war.37 How the ILO ‘‘turnedthe corner’’ after World War II was a popular topic,38 as was the evolutionof internal structures, e.g. on the occasion of the 100th session of theGoverning Body in 1946.39 A good deal of ‘‘inside’’ publication on theILO history was brought out on the occasion of anniversaries, again idealmoments for reflection on past, present, and future achievements. In 1949the ILO celebrated its thirty years of existence, but it was not long afterthe war and the move from Montreal back to Geneva was only three yearsearlier, so the festivities were kept quite small with a few booklets andarticles in the International Labour Review.40 In 1959 mainly outsiderspublished an ILO history.41

The organization’s 50th anniversary ten years later in 1969, when theILO received the Nobel Peace Prize, led to a veritable ‘‘explosion’’ ofhistorical reviews,42 to which former high-level ILO officials andDirectors-General not surprisingly made a significant contribution.43 It is

37. J.G. Winant, Letter from Grosvenor Square: An Account of a Stewardship (London, 1947);H. Butler, The Lost Peace: A Personal Impression (London, 1950); H. Butler, ConfidentMorning (London, 1950).38. ‘‘The International Labour Organization Since the War’’, ILR, 67 (1953), pp. 109–155;E. Phelan, ‘‘Some Reminiscences of the ILO’’, Studies: An Irish Critical Quarterly, 44 (1954),171, pp. 241–270; idem, ‘‘The ILO Sets Up its Wartime Center in Canada’’, Studies, 44 (1955),174, pp. 152–170; idem, ‘‘The ILO Turns the Corner’’, Studies, 45 (1956), 178, pp. 160–186;idem, ‘‘After Pearl Harbour: ILO Problems’’, Studies, 45 (1957), 182, pp. 193–206.39. ‘‘One Hundred Sessions of the Governing Body of the International Labour Office’’, ILR,55 (1947), pp. 201–226; ‘‘The Composition of the Governing Body of the International LabourOffice’’, ILR, 70 (1954), pp. 496–525.40. E.g. 30 Years of Struggle for Social Justice (Geneva, 1949); ‘‘The Thirtieth Anniversary of theFoundation of the ILO: 1919–1949’’, ILR, 60 (1949), pp. 559–571.41. G. de Lusignan, L’Organisation internationale du Travail (1919–1959) (preface de JeanMorellet) (Paris, 1959); M. Montceau, L’Organisation internationale du Travail (1919–1959)(Paris, 1959).42. J. Price, ILO: 50 Years On (London, 1969); ‘‘Cinquantenaire de l’OIT, 1919–1969’’, Revuefrancaise des Affaires sociales, 23 (1969), pp. 1–226; G. Lefranc, ‘‘L’Organisation internationaledu Travail a 50 ans’’, Revue de Defense Nationale, 25 (1969), pp. 1764–1776; J.A. Tijerino-Medrano,‘‘ILO: Fifty Years of Labor’’, Americas, 21:7 (1969), pp. 16–22; I. Maxim, ‘‘L’Organisation inter-nationale du Travail a son demi-centenaire’’, Revue Roumaine d’Etudes Internationales, 2:6 (1969),pp. 104–112; J. Collins, ‘‘Fifty Years of the International Labour Organization’’, Pakistan Horizon,23 (1970), pp. 51–61.43. D. Morse, The Origin and Evolution of the ILO and its Role in the World Community(Ithaca, NY, 1969); C.W. Jenks, Social Justice in the Law of Nations: The ILO Impact after FiftyYears (New York, 1970); idem, Universality and Ideology in the ILO (address at the Graduate




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also no coincidence that several books and articles on the relationsbetween the ILO and its member-states were published on this occasion,quite often by the government departments (social affairs, labouradministration, foreign affairs) directly involved in the ILO.44 However,the very classical institutional history was still the predominant format,as in the publications of G.A. Johnston,45 former Assistant Director-General, and Anthony Alcock,46 an external researcher employed by theILO for a history book project on the occasion of fifty years of the ILO.While Johnston is very descriptive and sticks to the official account of theorganizational development and a summing-up of the major workingfields, Alcock was the first to write a comprehensive study of ILO historyfrom its origins until 1970. Despite its shortcomings (this is in the firstplace a chronological review and lacks, on a certain level, analyticalscope), Alcock is still a valuable source of information, simply because heplaces the ILO and its different actors in a broader historical and inter-national context, from the early decades to the problems of the Cold War.

On the other hand, ILO historiography after World War II wentbeyond the traditional institutional story. The second half of the twentiethcentury was characterized by a significant trend towards a more academichistoriography, with a diversification in scope, research questions, andsubjects. In comparison to the interwar period, studies on the ILO fromthe 1950s became less descriptive, but more critical and analytical. The1950s, and especially the 1960s, can be regarded as the real take-off of in-depth scientific research on ILO history. There are two significant trends.

Firstly, there is a trend towards professionalization in historicalresearch on the ILO. Professional historians discovered the ILO as a fieldof study that was, until then, almost exclusively occupied by legal scholarsand political scientists specialized in international relations. This was aconsequence of the changes in the field of labour history, that in itselfbecame integrated into professional historiography after World War II.47

Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 27 October 1969); idem, 1919–1969: 50 Years inthe Service of Social Progress (Geneva, 1969); N. Valticos, ‘‘Fifty Years of Standard-SettingActivities by the International Labour Organization’’, ILR, 100 (1969), pp. 201–237;J. Rens, L’histoire de 50 annees (Geneva, 1969).44. E.g. N. Valticos, ‘‘The International Labour Organization and National Parliaments’’,Interparliamentary Bulletin (Geneva), 1969, pp. 16–31; M. Stewart, Britain and the ILO: TheStory of Fifty Years (London, 1969); N.K. Kakkar, India and the ILO: The Story of Fifty Years(Delhi, 1970); Portugal e a Organizacao internacional do trabalho (Lisbon, 1970).45. G.A. Johnston, The International Labour Organization: Its Work for Social and EconomicProgress (London, 1970).46. A. Alcock, History of the International Labour Organization (London, 1971).47. M. van der Linden and L. Heerma van Voss, ‘‘Introduction’’, in L. Heerma van Voss andM. van der Linden (eds), Class and Other Identities: Gender, Religion and Ethnicity in theWriting of European Labour History (New York [etc.], 2002), pp. 11–12.




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A typical example of this historical professionalization is the biographyof Albert Thomas by Bertus Schaper in 1953,48 as a doctoral disserta-tion from the History Department of the University of Leiden, oneof the first scientific and independent studies on the ILO’s firstDirector and therefore different from the ongoing stream of officialand more hagiographic studies on Thomas.49 This kind of professionali-zation not only implied the production of historical biographies (one.g. ILO pioneers and Directors-General50), but also more attentionfor the ILO’s constituents from a critical-historical perspective,51

and a reconsideration of the origins and early decades by academicresearchers.52

Secondly, research shifted from the general institutional aspects of theILO as a whole to the analysis of actual decision-making processes withinthe organization. This trend was clearly influenced by new researchwithin the field of international relations theory. There, the study ofthe formal arrangements of international organizations (constitutionaltexts, organization structures, etc.) was gradually abandoned for theanalysis of patterns of influence shaping organizational outcomes.53

Scholars opened up the ‘‘black box’’ of the ILO and focused explicitly onparticular problems and issues such as leadership and the role of the ILODirector-General,54 the international supervision of international labour

48. B.W. Schaper, Albert Thomas. Dertig jaar sociaal reformisme (Leiden, 1953) [trans. inFrench as Albert Thomas. Trente ans de reformisme social (Paris [etc.], 1959)].49. A. Thomas, International Social Policy (Geneva, 1948), composed of passages of Thomas’sspeeches, reports, and articles; by the French ILO official and Thomas’s personal friend, MariusViple, Albert Thomas vivant. Un grand citoyen du monde (Geneve, 1957).50. E.g. A.M. Allen, Sophy Sanger: A Pioneer in Internationalism (Glasgow, 1958); A. Knepper,John Gilbert Winant and International Social Justice (unpublished doctoral dissertation, NewYork University, 1963); B. Bellush, He Walked Alone: A Biography of John Gilbert Winant (TheHague, 1968); B. Georges and D. Tintant, Leon Jouhaux. Cinquante ans de syndicalisme (Paris,1962); B. Georges, D. Tintant, and M.-A. Renauld, Leon Jouhaux dans le mouvement syndicalfrancais (Paris, 1979).51. B. Beguin, The ILO and the Tripartite System (New York, 1959); A. Salah-Bey,L’Organisation internationale du Travail et le syndicalisme mondial (1945–1960) (Ambilly[etc.], 1963); J.P. Windmuller, ‘‘Soviet Employers in the ILO: the Experience of the 1930s’’,IRSH, 6 (1961), pp. 353–374.52. E.g. J.W. Follows, Antecedents of the International Labour Organization (Oxford, 1951);P.D. Moynihan, ‘‘The United States and the International Labor Organization 1889–1934’’(unpublished doctoral dissertation, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1960); idem, ‘‘TheWashington Conference of the International Labor Organization’’, Labor History, 3 (1962),pp. 307–334; V. Coussirat-Coustere, Les origines et la naissance de l’Organisation internationaledu Travail (Paris, 1970).53. F. Kratochwil and J. Ruggie, ‘‘International Organization: A State of the Art on an Art ofthe State’’, International Organization, 40 (1986), p. 755.54. J.S. Gillespie, The Role of the Director in the Development of the International LabourOrganization (New York, 1956).




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standards,55 the formation and functioning of the group system,56 andbureaucratic policies.57 Particularly relevant in this period were twostudies on ILO decision-making by Ernst Haas and Robert Cox.

In Beyond the Nation-State Ernst Haas applied a neo-functionalistorganization theory to the functioning and outcomes of the ILO. Neo-functionalists assigned a major role to international organizations and therole of international technocrats, not simply as passive recipients of newtasks and authority but as active agents of task expansion. They weregiven this role as a consequence of the failure of national states to solvesubstantive problems ‘‘beyond the nation-state’’. With an historicaloverview since 1919, Haas shows the ILO as a species of institutionalizedinterest politics resulting from an interaction of organizational dynamicsand typical actor concerns.58

A few years later, in 1973, Robert Cox also explained the ILO’sevolution by changes in its environment, notably world politics settingthe framework for (non-)action. Cox applied a ‘‘taxonomical’’ approachby analysing the ILO as a political system, divided into sub-systems, anddeveloping a framework of analysis by using four variables: environ-ment, actors, patterns of influence, and structure. Subscribing to therealist school in international relations, Cox believed that the interestsof the main political powers in world politics were the most crucialdeterminants of the ILO’s autonomy. He concluded that the ILO was a‘‘limited monarchy’’, identifying the ILO as an organization of ‘‘lowpolitics’’ (in contrast to ‘‘high politics’’ organizations such as the IMF andGATT), but with considerable autonomy from the member-states and astrong leadership.59

What Haas and Cox have in common is that they cut the ILO openand dissected its anatomy in order to unravel decision-making patternsand, ultimately, to determine institutional autonomy. Although theirtheoretical frameworks can be criticized substantially – because of positivist

55. E.A. Landy, The Effectiveness of International Supervision: Thirty Years of ILO Experience(London [etc.], 1966); idem, ‘‘The Effectiveness of International Labour Standards: Possibilitiesand Performance’’, ILR, 101 (1970), pp. 555–604.56. T. Landelius, Workers, Employers and Governments: A Comparative Study ofDelegations and Groups at the International Labour Conference, 1919–1964 (Stockholm, 1965);A. Suviranta, The Role of the Member State in the Unification Work of the International LabourOrganization (Helsinki, 1966).57. N.F. Dufty, ‘‘Organizational Growth and Goal Structure: The Case of the ILO’’,International Organization, 26 (1972), pp. 479–498.58. E. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization(Stanford, CA, 1964).59. R. Cox, ‘‘ILO: Limited Monarchy’’, in R. Cox, H. Jacobson, and G. Curzon (eds), TheAnatomy of Influence: Decision Making in International Organization (New Haven, CT [etc.],1973), pp. 102–138.




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determinism – these studies are still very valuable for their massiveempirical research. A remarkable detail is that the studies of both Haasand Cox have been completely overlooked by the ILO itself. TheInternational Labour Review, for instance, has never devoted a singlebook review to one of these academic studies. In Cox’s case, this is notsurprising, since he left the ILO, as the Director of the InternationalInstitute for Labour Studies, after a dispute with the organization and thethen Director-General, Wilfred Jenks, on the autonomy of the Instituteand its publications.

Overall, all these new directions in ILO research were evoked by theobservation of increasing discrepancies between the original constitu-tional designs and daily organizational practices, in a context of politicaltensions during the Cold War. This was also the general environment thatled to a growing research interest in the power and prestige of individualstates within international organizations. It will come as no surprisethat, against the background of the Cold War, the United States60 andthe USSR61 especially were popular research topics. Although thesewere definitely not the member-states that scored highly in terms ofcompliance in national legislation with international labour standards, thepeculiar relationships between Washington and Moscow as well as withinternational organizations such as the ILO were interesting cases forhistorical analysis. The multitude of this kind of literature explains thestill predominantly North-Atlantic bias in this period.

The slowly growing scholarly attention towards the non-Westernworld could not overcome this. A wave of decolonization that led to amassive increase in ILO membership during the 1950s and 1960s put newissues on the ILO’s political agenda and consequently also on the agendaof ILO researchers. A new line of research began concentrating on theimpact on ILO work of developing countries’ membership with regard totripartism, decision-making organs, and the orientation and content of the

60. R. Hislop, The United States and the Soviet Union in the ILO (Ann Arbor, MI, 1961);Moynihan, ‘‘The United States and the ILO’’; J. Tipton, Participation of the United Statesin the ILO (University of Illinois, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, 1959);J. Johnson e.a., ‘‘The US and the ILO’’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and SocialSciences, 310 (1957), pp. 182–195; A. French, A Problem of International Cooperation: A Studyof the Evolution of the ILO with Particular Reference to US Participation (Yale University,1954).61. C. Osakwe, The Participation of the Soviet Union in Universal International Organiza-tions: A Political and Legal Analysis of Soviet Strategies and Aspirations inside the ILO,UNESCO and WHO (Leiden, 1972); M. Downs, Study of Soviet Participation in the ILO withEmphasis on the Period 1960–1964 (Notre Dame University, IN, 1971); Hislop, United Statesand the Soviet Union in the ILO; H. Jacobson, ‘‘The USSR and the ILO’’, InternationalOrganization, 14 (1960), pp. 402–428; K. Tidmarsh, The Soviet Union and the ILO (Oxford,1957).




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ILO’s work. Against the background of a growing North–South divide,parallel to the traditional East–West conflict in the heyday of the ColdWar, there was a growing interest in the role of the ILO in the broadmultilateral effort to establish universal human rights. The focus was,of course, on rights at work, including the formulation of severalmajor standards (on freedom of association, social security, and non-discrimination).62 At the core of the debate was the supposed dichotomybetween universalism and diversity, or the problems of reconciling a wideinternational membership with the specific needs for the regions (LatinAmerica, Asia, and Africa).63 An important protagonist of this strand inthe literature was Wilfred Jenks. As a leading official and the Director-General of the ILO between 1970 and 1973 he was directly concernedwith these problems.64

Within this cluster of literature, the issue of technical cooperationreceived specific attention. This third pillar of the main activities of theILO, which was developed after World War II in parallel with standard-setting and international expertise, was conceived as an instrument ofdevelopment aid.65 But in comparison to the standard-setting tasks andlegal procedures of the ILO, technical cooperation was seriously under-researched in this period. The purely legal literature still set the tone.66

The International Labour Review, for instance, published a series ofarticles on the compliance of national legislation in the member-stateswith international labour standards.67

62. E.g. W.P. Gormley, ‘‘The Emerging Protection of Human Rights by the InternationalLabour Organization’’, Albany Law Review, 30 (1966), pp. 13–51; E. Haas, Human Rights andInternational Action: The Case of Freedom of Association (Stanford, CA, 1970).63. J. Monat, L’Organisation internationale du Travail et le regionalisme (unpublished doctoraldissertation, University of Lyon, 1955); P.F. Gonidec, ‘‘L’OIT et l’Afrique Noire. Universalismeet regionalisme’’, Recueil Penant, 70 (1960), 679, pp. 273–290.64. C.W. Jenks, Human Rights and International Labour Standards (London [etc.], 1960);idem, Human Rights, Social Justice and Peace: The Broader Significance of the ILO Experience(Symposium on the International Protection of Human Rights, Norwegian Nobel Institute,1967); idem, ‘‘Universality and Ideology in the ILO’’, Annals of International Studies, 1 (1970),pp. 45–64.65. J. Chapelle, La collaboration de l’Organisation internationale du Travail et des NationsUnies en matiere d’assistance technique (unpublished master’s thesis, Liege University, 1956);J. Rens, ‘‘The ILO and International Technical Cooperation’’, ILR, 83 (1961), pp. 413–435;N.F. Dufty, ‘‘Technical Assistance and the ILO’’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 9 (1967),pp. 245–257; J. Rens, Le programme andin. Contribution de l0OIT a un projet-pilote decooperation technique multilaterale (Brussels, 1987).66. L.-E. Troclet, Legislation sociale internationale (preface de Georges Scelle) (Brussels, 1952);E. Vogel-Polsky, Du tripartisme a l’Organisation internationale du Travail (Brussels, 1966);Dahl, ‘‘Role of ILO Standards’’, pp. 309–351; N. Valticos, Droit international du travail(Paris, 1970).67. These are only a few examples to illustrate the format (for more case studies per country,see the ILR): G.A. Johnston, ‘‘The Influence of International Labour Standards on Legislation




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F R O M T H E M I D 1 9 7 0 S U N T I L T H E E N D O F T H E C O L D

WA R : P O L I T I C I Z AT I O N A N D S TA G N AT I O N

The 1970s were a decade of strong politicization and weakened autonomyof the ILO as a consequence of the deepening polarization during theCold War in combination with quick changes in Directors-General. In1977 the US withdrew from the ILO for a number of interconnectedreasons, denouncing the ‘‘erosion of tripartism’’ and the selective concernof the ILO for human rights. The immediate cause was the condemnationof Israel on the grounds of racial discrimination and violation of trade-union rights in the occupied territories and the admission of the PalestineLiberation Organization (PLO) as an observer at the InternationalLabour Conference. The ILO suffered after the US withdrawal as it sawits budget severely reduced.

In the 1980s the Keynesian model was replaced by the so-calledneo-liberal ‘‘Washington consensus’’: instruments of social dialoguewere questioned and social security and welfare expenditures were cut ina phase of liberalization and deregulation of the dominating globaleconomy. In this context the ILO lost ground. It could not play a veryactive role because of the political divisions among its members. Notonly the East–West division, but also the North–South conflict paralysedthe ILO. This is clearly reflected in the state of historical research,characterized by a general disinterest in the organization’s role in worldsociety. Some reference works were published, but they were generallycharacterized by a ‘‘return’’ to the institutional format of the earlierdays.68

Robert Cox’s Labor and Hegemony, published in 1977, the year the USwithdrew from the ILO, was much more analytical and critical. Cox hadleft the realist school in international relations by then and shifted to aneo-Gramscian approach. He participated in the so-called ‘‘Americanhegemony debate’’ by explaining international organizations in termsof hegemonic power relations. As such, Cox defined the ILO as an

and Practice in the United Kingdom’’, ILR, 97 (1968), pp. 465–487; V. Ayissi Mvodo and R. LeFaou, ‘‘The Influence of International Labour Standards on the Legislation of Cameroon’’, ILR,108 (1973), pp. 163–185.68. V.-Y. Ghebali, Organisation internationale et guerre mondiale: le cas de la Societe desNations et de l’Organisation internationale du Travail pendant la seconde guerre mondiale(unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Grenoble, 1975); M. Tortora, Institutionspecialisee et organisation mondiale: etude des relations de l’OIT avec la SDN et l’ONU(Brussels, 1980); A.K. Tikriti, Tripartism and the International Labour Organization: A Studyof the Legal Concept, its Origins, Function and Evolution in the Law of Nations (Stockholm,1982); E. Osieke, Constitutional Law and Practice in the International Labour Organization(Dordrecht [etc.], 1985); V.-Y. Ghebali, The International Labour Organization: A Case Studyon the Evolution of UN Specialised Agencies (Dordrecht, 1989).




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international vehicle through which global power in production relationscould be enhanced.69

Self-evidently the US withdrawal in 1977 and its re-entry in 1981 gave riseto a remarkable flood of literature.70 At the same time, there was also arenewed attention towards the American participation in the ILO in earlierdecades.71 Relations with other member-states were a classic topic forresearch, fairly descriptive and along the lines of traditional institutionalhistory.72 On the side of non-governmental actors, women and employersbegan to be explored as separate subjects of analysis. For instance, the ILOconvention of 1951 on equal pay for men and women was at stake in the everongoing debate on the special protection and equal treatment of women bythe ILO.73 There was less debate on the role of employers in the ILO thathas been poorly researched in comparison to that of the trade unions,. Thefew studies that came out were written by employers and were thereforerather personal reflections than in-depth historical analyses.74

S I N C E T H E 1 9 9 0 S : T O WA R D S A ‘‘ G L O B A L’’ I L O H I S T O RY ?

There has been a renewed lively research interest in diverse aspects ofthe ILO since the 1990s. I see two reasons for this. Firstly, after the end

69. R. Cox, ‘‘Labor and Hegemony’’, International Organization, 31 (1977), pp. 385–424.70. M. Imber, The USA, ILO, UNESCO and IAEA: Politization and Withdrawal inthe Specialized Agencies (London, 1989); S. Schlossberg, ‘‘United States’ Participation inthe International Labour Organization: Redefining the Role’’, Comparative Labor LawJournal (Philadelphia), 11 (1989), pp. 48–80; M. Senn, Retrait des Etats-Unis de l’OIT et leurretour au sein de l’organisation: motifs et consequences (unpublished thesis, Hochschule furWirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, St Gallen, 1986); W. Galenson, The International LaborOrganization: An American View (Madison, WI, 1981); J. Joyce, ‘‘Will the USA Quit theILO?’’, Contemporary Review, 228 (1976), pp. 169–174.71. G. Ostrower, ‘‘The American Decision to Join the International Labor Organization’’,Labor History, 16 (1975), pp. 495–504; G. Kruglak, Politics of United States Decision Making inUnited Nations Specialized Agencies: The Case of the ILO (Washington DC, 1980) aboutAmerican decision-making and ILO policy-formation between 1954 and 1971.72. V.-Y. Ghebali, La France en guerre et les organisations internationales, 1939–1945 (Paris,1969); E. Harari, The Politics of Labor Legislation in Japan: National-International Interaction(Berkeley, CA, 1973); V.D. Pedersen, Danmark og De internationale arbejdskonventioner(Arhus, 1974); Sverige och ILO, 1927–1977 (Stockholm, 1977); J. Mainwaring, InternationalLabour Organization: A Canadian View (Ottawa, 1986); F. Blanchard, ‘‘La Belgique, les Belgeset l’O.I.T.’’, in P. Van der Vorst (ed.), Cent ans de droit social belge (Brussels, 1988), pp. 857–881;F. de Felice, Sapere e Politica. L0Organizzazione Internazionale di Lavoro tra le due Guerre1919–1939 (Milan, 1988).73. M. Budiner, Droit de la femme a l’egalite de salaire et la convention nr. 100 del’Organisation internationale du Travail (Paris, 1975).74. P. Waline, Un patron au Bureau International du Travail (Paris, 1976); P. Dimitrijevic,L’Organisation internationale du Travail. Histoire de la representation patronale (Geneva,1972).




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of the Cold War and in a new era of globalization nation-states begantaking more interest in international policy coordination by multilateralstructures. At the same time, the important changes in internationalsociety and the global political order revitalized the role of internationalorganizations. These circumstances stimulated the interest of academics ininternational organizations, given the debate in the literature on the ILOand the social dimension of globalization, the role of international labourstandards in the world trade regime, and the creation of core labourstandards – these are only a few of today’s hot topics.75

Secondly, growing research interest in the ILO was also a consequence ofthe transnationalization of labour history as a field of study. For a long timein the twentieth century labour historians did not look much further thannational frames of reference, not paying much explicit attention to inter-national connections, comparisons, and communities. In this scenario theytended to overlook the role of international organizations such as the ILO.But the recent trend towards globalization and the increasing importance oftransnational organizations and multinational enterprises broadened labourhistorians’ scope to a transnational or global research level. Studying anorganization that was explicitly created to transnationally regulate labourstandards and relations automatically opens up the national frameworks ofanalysis that have traditionally been predominant. The result has been aremarkable boost in the literature. ILO history is now studied from dif-ferent disciplines and with a wide variety of perspectives and themes relatedto its long history: for instance women’s rights and, more broadly, genderfrom a constructivist approach,76 decolonization, human rights, indigenousand forced labour,77 the role of epistemic communities, intellectuals and

75. The literature is huge – here is just one example that also provides a good historicalperspective (and is written by an author from the South): M. Nieves Roldan-Confesor, ‘‘LabourRelations and the ILO Core Labour Standards’’, in M. van der Linden and T. Koh (eds), LabourRelations in Asia and Europe (Singapore, 2000), pp. 19–52.76. E.g. B. Reinalda and N. Verhaaren, Vrouwenbeweging en internationale organisaties1868–1986: een vergeten hoofdstuk uit de geschiedenis van de internationale betrekkingen (DeKnipe, 1989); C. Riegelman Lubin and A. Winslow, Social Justice for Women: The InternationalLabor Organization and Women (Durham, NC, 1990); S. Whitworth, ‘‘Gender, InternationalRelations and the Case of the ILO’’, Review of International Studies, 20 (1994), pp. 389–405; N.Berkovitch, From Motherhood to Citizenship: Women’s Rights and International Organizations(Baltimore, MD, 1999); E. Prugl, The Global Construction of Gender: Home-Based Work in thePolitical Economy of the 20th Century (New York, 1999).77. V. Leary, ‘‘Lessons from the Experience of the International Labour Organization’’, inP. Alston (ed.), The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal (Oxford, 1992),pp. 580–620; H.G. Bartolomei de la Cruz, G. Von Potobsky, and L. Swepston, The InternationalLabor Organization: The International Standards System and Basic Human Rights (Boulder, CO,1996); L. Rodriguez-Pinero, Indigenous Peoples, Postcolonialism, and International Law: TheILO Regime (1919–1989) (Oxford, 2005); D. Maul, Menschenrechte, Sozialpolitik undDekolonisation. Die Internationale Arbeitsorganisation 1940–1970 (Essen, 2007); idem, ‘‘The




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international expertise,78 social security and the construction of welfare stateregimes,79 child labour,80 and transnational networks of non-governmentalactors and interest group processes,81 in many cases looking back to theideological and political origins82 and the early phases (the interwar periodfor instance) of ILO history.83

In order to understand the impact on nation-states of the interplaybetween state and non-state actors on the international level, some studieshave focused on the relations between the ILO and one of its membercountries. After all, the ILO is no supranational parliament totally

International Labour Organization and the Struggle against Forced Labour from 1919 to thePresent’’, Labor History, 48 (2007), pp. 477–500; S. Kott, ‘‘Arbeit. Ein transnationales Objekt?Die Frage der Zwangsarbeit im ‘Jahrzehnt der Menschenrechte’’’, in C. Benninghaus et al. (eds),Unterwegs in Europa. Beitrage zu einer pluralen europaischen Geschichte (Frankfurt, 2008,forthcoming).78. E.g. A. Endres and G. Fleming, International Organizations and the Analysis of EconomicPolicy, 1919–1950 (Cambridge, 2002); Van Daele, ‘‘Engineering Social Peace’’, pp. 435–466;S. Kott, ‘‘Une ‘communaute epistemique’ du social? Experts de l’OIT et internationalisation despolitiques sociales dans l’entre-deux-guerres’’, Geneses. Sciences sociales et histoire, 71 (2008),pp. 26–46.79. D. Strang and P. Chang, ‘‘The International Labor Organization and the Welfare State:Institutional Effects on National Welfare Spending’’, International Organization, 47 (1993), pp.235–262; C. Guinand, Die Internationale Arbeitsorganisation (ILO) und die soziale Sicherheitin Europa (1942–1969) (Berne, 2003); I. Liebeskind, L’Organisation internationale du Travailface au chomage: competences normatives et contribution a l’evolution de la pensee economique,1919–1939 (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Geneva University, 2005); D. Maul, ‘‘Dertransnationale Blick. Die Internationale Arbeitsorganisation und die sozialpolitischen KrisenEuropas im 20. Jahrhundert’’, Archiv fur Sozialgeschichte, 47 (2007), pp. 349–369.80. M. Dahlen, The Negotiable Child: The ILO Child Labour Campaign 1919–1973 (Uppsala,2007).81. E. Lorenz, Defining Global Justice: The History of US International Labor Standards Policy(Notre Dame, IN, 2001).82. Van Daele, ‘‘Engineering Social Peace’’; R. Tosstorff, ‘‘The International Trade-UnionMovement and the Founding of the International Labour Organization’’, IRSH, 50 (2005), pp.399–433; M. Rodriguez Garcia, ‘‘Early Views on Internationalism: Marxist Socialists versusLiberals’’, Labour Internationalism: Different Times, Different Faces (special issue Revue belgede Philologie et d’Histoire), 84 (2006), pp. 1049–1073.83. L. Heerma van Voss, ‘‘The International Federation of Trade Unions and the Attempt toMaintain the Eight-Hour Working Day (1919–1929)’’, in F. van Holthoon and M. van derLinden (eds), Internationalism in the Labour Movement, 1830–1940 (Leiden, 1988), pp.518–542; S. Grabherr, Das Washingtoner Arbeitszeitubereinkommen von 1919. Versuch einerinternationalen Regelung der Arbeitszeit in Europa (Berlin, 1992); J. Heitmann, ‘‘The ILO andthe Regulation of White Lead in Britain during the Interwar Years: An Examination ofInternational and National Campaigns in Occupational Health’’, Labour History Review, 69(2004), pp. 267–284; T. Cayet, Organiser le travail, organiser le monde. Etude d’un milieuinternational d’organisateurs-rationalisateurs durant l’entre-deux-guerres (unpublisheddoctoral dissertation, European University Institute, 2005); P.-A. Rosenthal, ‘‘Geopolitique etEtat-providence. Le BIT et la politique mondiale des migrations dans l’entre-deux-guerres’’,Annales HSS, 61 (2006), pp. 99–134.




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independent from the nation-states. National governments finance theactivities of the ILO and are supposed to implement its internationallabour standards. A few external researchers, often financed by theirnational governments, took the occasion of the ILO’s seventy-fifthanniversary in 1994 to undertake national case studies of the ILO from ahistorical perspective.84 What these studies have in common is that theyare mainly based on national archives. By not systematically exploring theinternational archives in Geneva they do not unravel the complexity ofthe context of the ILO as an international organization. Other studieshave tried to overcome these shortcomings. They consider nation-statesnot as dominant units in world politics, but use national case studies forthe analysis of the development and the real impact of the ILO as creatoror disseminator of ideas and policies.85

Drawing general conclusions based on all these studies would do harm tothis wide range of multifaceted scholarship, but if there is one commonthread that can be detected, then it is the broader contextual frame ofreference in which the ILO is analysed. The deterministic and structuralistapproach of political scientists in the 1960s and 1970s, who studied the ILOas a rather closed political system that left no room for agency and socialchange, was abandoned. In recent research the ILO is no longer solelyregarded as a decision-making arena for nation-states, but rather as apotentially dynamic intellectual actor where long-term social change is orcould be effected: in other words, as an international organization for theconceptualization, diffusion, and transmission of ideas and policies on labourissues in a broader transnational network of diverse actors, governmental andnon-governmental, policy-makers, technical experts, and interest groupsacting beyond the nation-state.

The wide variety of subjects, as well as the perspective of the ILO ascreator or disseminator of ideas and policies, were clearly reflected in the‘‘ILO: Past and Present’’ conference, organized in Brussels in October 2007.

84. K. Ewing, Britain and the ILO (London, 1994); H. Heldal, Norge i ILO 1919–1939:Norske statsmyndigheters, arbeidsgiveres og fagforeningers holdning til den internasjonalearbeidsorganisasjon (Oslo, 1994); a summary in English appeared as H. Heldal, ‘‘Norway in theInternational Labour Organization, 1919–1939’’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 21 (1996),pp. 255–283; J. Cuesta Bustillo, Una esperanza para los trabajadores. Las relaciones entreEspana y la Organizacion Internacional del Trabajo (1919–1939) (Madrid, 1994).85. S. Hughes, New Zealand and the ILO: Current Debates and Future Direction (Auckland,1995); K. Boonstra, The International Labour Organization and the Netherlands: DifferentViews concerning Government Influence on the Relationship between Workers and Employers(Leiden, 1996); M. Ruotsila, ‘‘The Great Charter for the Liberty of the Workingman: Labour,Liberals and the Creation of the ILO’’, Labour History Review, 67 (2002), pp. 29–47; J. VanDaele, ‘‘Engineering Social Peace: The ILO as a Laboratory for the Transnational Transfer ofIdeas and the Influence on Social Politics in Belgium 1919–1944’’ (in Dutch) (unpublisheddoctoral dissertation, Ghent University, Department of Contemporary History, 2007).




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This was the first international academic forum ever organized that wasentirely devoted to ILO history. The ILO’s origins and past and presentachievements, failures, objectives, and future potential were assessed from amultidisciplinary perspective, albeit largely dominated by social historians.The papers presented at the conference both revisited old terrains (forinstance the role of the socialist International Federation of Trade Unions,World War II, the economic depression and unemployment, and the role ofthe ILO’s Directors-General) and provided new facts on ILO history (forinstance on the ILO’s response to political authoritarianism in Latin Americaand eastern Europe). Other papers dealt with topics as varied as metropolitanand non-metropolitan labour, decolonization, child labour, and exploredissues that have often been neglected in traditional ILO literature: forinstance, the efforts of internationally organized women and of intellectualworkers to find a place within the ILO.86 The broad scope of the conferencealso made it possible to evaluate the ILO’s challenges from the global poli-tical economy of the last decades. Jeffrey Harrod, for example, criticallyassessed the ILO’s tripartite model of labour relations that, dating back to1919, has only represented the formal trade-union organizations and leavesno room for the growing informal sector. However, despite the wide varietyof topics, the Brussels conference suffered from the same old shortcomings.Except for two contributions on Latin America and a few others on non-metropolitan labour, welfare reform in the South, and the already mentionedinformal sector, the majority of the contributions focused entirely on theindustrialized world. Unfortunately, one has thus to conclude that ILOhistory is still not ‘‘global history’’.

It is clear from this overview that academic and, more specifically,historical scholarship has taken over the leading role from the ‘‘insider’’literature of the early decades. This does not mean that historical studiesproduced by the ILO itself have completely disappeared. The seventy-fifthanniversary in 1994 was once more an occasion to look at the organization’spast,87 including some good reviews of the Declaration of Philadelphia in1944.88

86. See also M. Rodriguez Garcia, ‘‘Conference Report ‘The International Labor Organization:Past and Present’’’, International Labor and Working-Class History, (2008) (forthcoming).A book with a selection of the papers is under preparation for publication in 2009.87. ‘‘75th anniversary issue’’, ILR, 133 (1994), pp. 431–522; Visions of the Future of SocialJustice: Essays on the Occasion of the ILO’s 75th Anniversary (Geneva, 1994); ‘‘InternationalLabor Organization’s 75th Anniversary’’, Monthly Labor Review, 117:9 (1994), pp. 3–58;B. Brett, International Labour in the 21st Century: The International Labour Organization,Monument to the Past or Beacon for the Future? (London, 1994).88. E. Lee, ‘‘The Declaration of Philadelphia: Retrospect and Prospect’’, ILR, 133 (1994),pp. 467–484; J.D. French, ‘‘The Declaration of Philadelphia and the Global Social Charterof the United Nations, 1944/45’’, in Sengenberger and Campbell, International LabourStandards, pp. 19–27.




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L O N G - T E R M S H I F T S A N D F U T U R E C H A L L E N G E S

ILO history as a field of study has had its ups and downs over the pastninety years. Different shifts and general characteristics help to explainthe current state of the field. Firstly, the relationship between ‘‘inside’’ and‘‘outside’’ literature on ILO history has changed significantly over thecourse of time. Originally, ILO staff paved the way, which resulted inthe classical institutional history, an official account of organizationaldevelopment and a summing-up of the major working fields, often forcommemorative purposes. Legal scholars and political scientists graduallytook over for a long period, before professional historians came intothe picture, stimulated by a trend towards a more academic (since the1950s and 1960s) and globalizing labour history (since the 1990s). Thisprofessionalization in ILO history broadened as well as deepened ILOhistoriography. The focus shifted away from the ‘‘architecture’’ of theILO and its procedures towards the broader transnational context and thenetworks of actors in which the ILO was functioning.

Consequently the gap between in-house and scholarly attention tothe ILO has widened over the course of time. This is a secondshift. Whereas in the early decades it was not at all unusual that bookswritten on the ILO by academics were prefaced by the ILO’s Director,the ILO’s knowledge of its own past (as well as knowledge of academicdevelopments regarding the history of the ILO) has become graduallylimited in more recent decades. The classic studies of Ernst Haasand Robert Cox exemplify this evolution. Bridging the gap betweenin-house and academic attention towards the ILO is therefore a realchallenge for the recently launched ILO Century Project, involvingboth ILO staff and academic scholars.89 Not surprisingly, this project alsohas a strong commemorative dimension, looking forward to the centenaryin 2019. A first stage in this project will commemorate the ninetiethanniversary in 2009, focusing on the impact of ILO ideas on socialdevelopment.

Scientific research into an international organization such as the ILOcannot be undertaken in a vacuum, but has to take into account theinternational context at the time. Thirdly, the assumption that ‘‘the fate ofthe field reflects the fate of the world’’ is, in the case of the ILO, certainlytrue for the period up to World War II (an explosion of work after 1919,followed by a period of more cautious reassessment approaching the1930s) and for recent decades, but definitely not for the postwar perioduntil the late 1960s. The heyday of the Cold War, in an internationalcontext of East–West tension, stimulated a more critical and analyticalapproach to research on the ILO.

89. For more information on this project see http://www.ilocentury.org.




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The fourth conclusion is that ILO historiography suffers from ‘‘geo-graphical narrowness’’. Although the ILO is an international organizationthat explicitly aims to promote minimum labour standards worldwide,ILO historiography has been, until now, largely dominated by scholarsfrom the the North Atlantic and the developed world. This is, of course,no coincidence. Between the two world wars, the ILO was largelydominated by European countries and in this period the literature definitelyis a reflection of this ‘‘old boys’ network’’ of European founding fathers.While a lot of attention was paid to the United States and the SovietUnion, related to the problems of universal membership and the case offreedom of association in the context of the Cold War, there was for along time no comparable interest in the regions in the South, although theILO significantly expanded its membership to a large group of developingcountries after decolonization. India is to a certain extent an exception,but here too, the field was largely dominated by people personally relatedto the work and world of the ILO. Overall, the ILO’s role and regionalactivities in the non-Western world still need a lot of further in-depthresearch. Here the problem of the availability and accessibility of sourcescomes into the picture. In my opinion, written sources, only to a certainextent available in ILO regional offices, should be combined with oralsources. In recent years, oral history has become popular for research intothe southern hemisphere, with the encouragement of the InternationalInstitute of Social History, for example.

Turning to new research paths in ILO history, one topic could be aninvestigation into the impact of ILO regional offices on the regions, as wellas on headquarters policy in Geneva. In South Africa this could be tested forthe case of apartheid, in which the ILO took on the protection of blackworkers. South Africa was forced out of the ILO in 1963 after a periodof moves by African delegates to condemn the country for its ongoingapartheid. In connection with this, an interesting enquiry could be intowhat ways events within the ILO contributed to the UN launching theconvention on the elimination of racial discrimination in 1965. This leadson to the question of relations between the ILO and other internationalorganizations, governmental as well as non-governmental, at the global level.In this perspective, a history of the ILO and global migration, by integratingthe story of the International Migration Organization,90 would be a challenge

90. The International Organization for Migration was established in 1951 as the ProvisionalIntergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME) to helpresettle displaced people in the chaos after World War II. Based in Geneva, it is nowthe principal intergovernmental agency promoting the humane management of migration andprotecting migrants’ rights by international cooperation and facilitating and regulating inter-national migration; M. Ducasse-Rogier, The International Organization for Migration1951–2001 (Geneva, 2001).




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for labour historians. And within the realm of development studies, a historyof the ILO and global development strategies in the long run opens up otherinteresting research paths (e.g. from the ILO Andean programme of thelate 1940s through the World Employment Program in the early 1970s tothe recent Decent Work Agenda). In this case the emphasis would be ontechnical cooperation, strongly under-researched in comparison with theILO as as a standard-setting organization.91

There are, of course, a lot of other missing pieces in the puzzle of ILOhistory. Looking at the unequal treatment of the ILO tripartite constituents,there is definitely an urgent need for in-depth academic research on theemployers’ side that has been far less studied than the role of trade unions. Itis significant that in recent years only one overview – rather a coffee-tablebook on the institutional development of the International Organization ofEmployers than a thorough historical analysis – was brought out by an oldPresident of the OIE.92 Consequently, it will come as no surprise that theILO and multinational corporations is a blank research field.

Within the broader network of transnational actors a lot has been saidabout labour and to a lesser extent liberal internationalism. On the side ofCatholic social organizations, research on the ILO and the Christianworking class is far less popular.93 One reason is the dominance of thesocialist International Federation of Trade Unions in the ILO’s Workers’Group in the first half of the twentieth century. In this light it would beinteresting to know more about the (development of the) relationshipbetween the ILO and the Catholic Church, after all both universal-international organizations. Formal relations with the Vatican wereestablished initially by the ILO’s first Director, Albert Thomas, in theearly 1920s.94 Of the ILO and other world religions (and the quitepowerful freemasonry in international circles) virtually nothing is known.

Given the evident problems with common sources, here again oralhistory would be very helpful, as it would be for analysis of electoralpolitics in the ILO (and international organizations in general). Thecampaigns led by candidates running for Director-General, for instance,

91. J.M. Bonvin, L’Organisation internationale du Travail. Etude sur une agence productrice denormes (Paris, 1998); K. Basu (ed.), International Labor Standards: History, Theory, and PolicyOptions (Malden, MA, 2003).92. J.J. Oechslin, The International Organization of Employers: Three-Quarters of a Centuryin the Service of the Enterprise (1920–1998) (Geneva, 2001).93. An exception is P. Pasture, Histoire du syndicalisme chretien international. La difficilerecherche d’une troisieme voie (Paris, 1999).94. G. Thelin, ‘y Pratique la justice’. Le christianisme social et l’Organisation internationale duTravail (Paris, 1939); A. Arnou, Organisation internationale du Travail et les catholiques (Paris,1933); A. Le Roy, Catholicisme social et Organisation internationale du Travail (Paris, 1937),trans. in English as A. Le Roy, Catholics and the International Labor Organization (New York,1939).




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leave practically no traces in the archives. It is here that memoirsand (auto)biographies of (former) ILO officials and Directors-Generalcould be useful.95 The biographical genre especially offers an interestinginsight into organizations.96 Representatives of national governments,trade-unionists, employers and – even more – officials in internationalbureaucracy are very often represented as invisible and anonymous actorspromoting social change. Biographies give these actors a ‘‘human face’’ bythrowing light on the people struggling with their idea(l)s and minorshortcomings within an international context. Albert Thomas has alwaysbeen a rewarding subject for biographers.97 Currently a biography onDavid Morse, ILO Director-General between 1948 and 1970, is beingcompleted.98 Morse’s successor, Wilfred Jenks, is, however, still waitingfor an academic biographer. Although very briefly in charge (as Director-General between 1970 and 1973), he had a life-long career in the ILO,producing a long series of interesting writings, not only on the ILO butwith a much wider and theoretical perspective on international relationsthat deserves more attention from historians and other researchersinterested in the history of the ILO.99

Overall, in writing the history of the ILO, it is crucial never to losesight of the organization’s main subject, working people themselves.Ignoring in our research the basic question of what the ILO ultimatelymeant for the working conditions and lives of millions of men, women,and children worldwide results in a dry institutional historiographydevoid of its human link to the real world of work.

95. E.g. A.A. Agard Evans, My Life as an International Civil Servant in the InternationalLabour Organization (Geneva, 1995) (covers historical aspects of the ILO from 1929 to 1966);M. Hansenne, Un garde-fou pour la mondialisation. Le BIT dans l’apres-guerre froide(Gerpinnes [etc.], 1999); F. Blanchard, L’Organisation internationale du Travail. De la guerrefroide a un nouvel ordre mondial (Paris, 2004).96. J. Van Daele, Van Gent tot Geneve. Louis Varlez. Een biografie (Ghent, 2002); Femaleofficials are, of course, even less the subject of research. Francoise Thebaud (University ofAvignon) is currently working on a biography of Marguerite Thibert, an ILO official in the1920s as an expert on women’s labour.97. Other than the already cited literature: M. Fine, ‘‘Albert Thomas: A Reformer’s Vision ofModernization’’, Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977), pp. 545–564; D. Guerin, AlbertThomas au BIT: de l’internationalisme a l’Europe (Geneva, 1996).98. D. Maul, Modernization, Democracy and Social Justice in the American Century: The Lifeof David A. Morse, 1907–1990 (in preparation).99. E.g. C.W. Jenks, The World Beyond the Charter in Historical Perspective (London, 1969);idem, Social Policy in a Changing World: The ILO Response (Geneva, 1976).




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